Squirrelmeister

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Muslims don't respect the Jesus of the bible. They created their own version to suit their erroneous dogma.

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The Quran says “the gospel” is the inspired word of God and that Jesus is the greatest prophet second only to Muhammad. Maybe they created some aspects of their version of Jesus, but there were Torah-observant historicist Christians (perhaps descendants of the Ebionites) living in Arabia. The scholarly consensus is that Islam is an offshoot of those Christians. The Quran even has material from what we’d consider apocryphal gospels but the Ebionites might have held them as authoritative. For example, the Quran verse about Jesus forming doves out of clay and then clapping his hands and bringing the birds to life (and flying away) was straight out of the infancy gospel of Thomas.

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On the flip side, Palm Sunday always reminds me that Pilate gets a bad rap with respect to the Jews. He was more atonished at the Jews

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That’s an allegorical tale, not meant to be taken literally. It’s not historical.

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for choosing to.save Barrabas over Jesus.

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How many Catholics in church today knew that Barabbas literally means “son of the father”? The gospel reading today was from Matthew - the earliest manuscripts call Barabbas… “Jesus Barabbas”. Who does Pilate release? Jesus son of the father, or Jesus the one called Christ? This is an allegorical remake of the Yom Kippur (day of atonement) ritual where the high priest gets two identical goats, casts lots, loads a goat with sin and releases it to the wilderness, and then sacrifices the other goat as a stand in for Yahweh their patron deity.

The second reading was an excerpt of Philippians 2. How may Catholics in church today actually caught from the scripture that Jesus only earned his name “Jesus” after he had been crucified, but not before, according to Paul?

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So, was the question “are sandals allegory too” coherent and thoughtful?

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I lost track of what was argued and what your response was about. The gospel of Mark was 100% allegory - “cleverly devised myth” as the author of 2 Peter cites his adversaries (the Christians who believed Jesus was a celestial deity who had never come to earth as a man.

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So no, I didn’t “refuse to admit I was wrong.” Your quote was misattributed, and even in its proper context, it reflects an unnamed minority opinion, not the position of any respected early Church authority.

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My mistake. I see it. Thanks for pointing it out.

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Will anyone like that ever admit they are/were wrong?

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Just did. Wish all of y’all were capable of the same.

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So you're telling me that a document that started as a Jewish fan-fiction and then was added to as Christian fan-fiction was then further added to by Christians to make the fan-fiction sound more orthodox is a true representation of what Paul believed,

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It’s all fan fiction, including your Bible.

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There were The Twelve Apostles and then Paul of Tarsus. I'm not aware of any additional Apostles. The List includes The Twelve and Paul. That's it.

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Who’s list?

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There may be other folks who traveled with and preached with the Apostles. They may have been very well known, very gifted and maybe even venerated and highly esteemed among the Apostles, but, does that phraseology in Scripture mean that they are actual Apostles? Not to my knowledge, because, the Last Apostle was Paul of Tarsus.

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One good example is Barnabus. He was definitely an apostle, and not one of the Twelve, and isn’t another nickname for Paul.

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Why do you think that there were other Apostles?

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1 Cor 9 and Acts 14 specifically names Barnabus as an apostle who traveled with Paul working for a living spreading the gospel message of Jesus.

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Usually the ink you inject into the water to misdirect, obfuscate, and confuse is typical Gnostic piffle. Here you’re simply taking Holy Scripture as it is and claim it says what it doesn’t say.

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:blah:

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A husband and wife, or sisters and brothers working with an Apostle to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ (much like Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary supported Jesus) does not justify or support female ordination.

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Look I don’t give two shits about female priestesses, pastors, ministers, deacons, or preachers.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of your scripture, but it could be due to intentional mistranslation by your favorite biblical publisher.

Let’s look at the ESV: they intentionally make the text read like Junia is simply known really well to the apostles, rather than clarifying Junia was an actual apostle.

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7Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

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And the NASB 1995: and in this translation, they fudge the name of Junia, a woman, and attempt to turn it into a nonexistent masculine name. “Junias” wasn’t a real name. In Ancient Greek, “Junia” was a female name with no male equivalent, the same as a name like “Rebecca” or “Madeline” or “Elizabeth”.

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Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

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Christian chauvinists like you desperately want Junia to not be an apostle.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes titles ranked within the church:

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28And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

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The KJV gets it correct:

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Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

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The NRSV gets it correct:

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Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

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We can check the Greek:

What adjective does Paul use of Junia?

episémos: Notable, distinguished, marked, prominent

Then we have:

en: in, on, at, by, with, among

And

tois apostolos: the Apostles

Origen, an early church father, quote’s Paul’s letter but has translated it to Latin:

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Andronicus et Junia consanguinei mei et socii carceris mei, qui apud apostolos insigniter noti sunt, qui etiam ante me in Christo erant.

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So I hope you learned something about how some in the church tried to re-write and overwrite and cover up the fact that Junia, a woman, was not only an apostle but she was a big fricking hotshot apostle according to Paul. I hope you also realize that Paul considered apostles to be assigned directly by God and were more highly ranked (the highest rank) among church leadership including bishops and helpers which were of much lower rank.

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Someone prominent among the Apostles-even renowned among them for their faith and labors-isn’t an Apostle

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Yeah Junia and Andronicus weren’t like these random non-apostles within a group of real apostles. The Greek word means inclusive of or within. Same with the Latin word. Junia was noteworthy within, or inside, inclusive of the group known as apostles.

Sure you can say “nuh uh” like Foo does all the time, but why stoop to his level? The evidence is clear.

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1 Timothy 2:12

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:lol:
An obvious pseudepigrapha)I.e. forgery, and in not written by the same guy who wrote this:

Romans 16:3

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3Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, 4and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. 5Greet also the church in their house.

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Romans 16:7

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Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

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So how would Priscilla and Junia be noteworthy among the apostles and work with Paul spreading the gospel if they couldn’t talk in their own house or teach anything to a man?

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But I think it lacks a broader understanding of the overall Pauline record, and the Gospel itself.

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If you presuppose it was all written by Paul and if you presuppose Paul’s letters and the gospels are all historically accurate and divinely inspired from the get go, then you can’t fairly analyze it and determine what is most likely based on the evidence.

The truth is that Paul wrote half a decade before the very first mention of a historical Jesus was ever recorded (Ignatius of Antioch). Paul (and the Pillars and all Christians) believed in the celestial model of Jesus, and most of them believed Jesus was killed by archons in heaven by crucifixion (1 Cor 2 and Ephesians 6:12) or was killed as a sacrifice in the heavenly temple not made with human hands (Hebrews 9).

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Galatians, Romans, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, and most emphatically Acts 9:15

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1 Timothy is 2nd century pseudepigrapha and Acts is pure fiction. In Romans and Galatians, Paul expressed hope for Israel and doesn’t use a blanket “the Jews” in a derogatory or judgmental manner.

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The historical record points out the division of the church around the time of Christ in overwhelming volume. In fact there is more archeological record of this than any event of its time. Remember Paul called out his contemporaries Peter and John for such behavior.

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What do have at “the time of Christ”? Assuming 30-ish CE? Anything? I’m not aware of a historical record contemporary with that period. We have the epistles of Paul which are traditionally dated to the 50s but they could’ve been in the 20s. We just don’t know for sure.

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Paul had a unique mission, to not only to evangelize the gentiles but to graft graft them in with Christ accepting Jews. How else would these people consider themselves?

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Paul viewed his theology as the “correct” form of Judaism. He wasn’t setting out to create a new religion. He was a Jew, and was sympathetic to “the Jews” everywhere in his letters except in the subject verses 14-16 where he states the wrath has come upon the Jews to completion, without any words of lament or sympathy.

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Paul at this point no longer a "traditional" Jew. He is messianic.

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There were messianic Israelites going back 1000 years before Paul, and a huge prominent group of messianic Jews lived on the edge of the Dead Sea. They left a treasure trove of scrolls that were found and recently translated. You might have heard about them.

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When Paul says “the Jews” in 1 Thess 2:15, he does not necessarily mean all Jews everywhere, the Jewish people as a whole, or Judaism as a religion

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I disagree and don’t know how you can say that because he doesn’t specify.

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I don't see this as a contradiction. This actually meshes with the gospel very nicely. We see the same overlap from Jesus in Luke and John. We also see it from peter and James. The NT language uses archons fluidly to describe cosmic, spiritual, political and human power. This is Paul's (and Biblical) worldview. Spiritual forces influence human position. it is a common theme throughout the entire Bible.

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You’re making the mistake again of assuming univocality. You’re starting with a conclusion, and then attempting to justify it with biblical apologies. Paul himself (the seven “undisputed” Pauline epistles and even the pseudapigraphical letters that align with him - Ephesians and Colossians) never once refers to a human as an archon. Paul is very specific about the powers and princes and rulers that they are very powerful heavenly beings. Gospel authors, writing an allegorical myth, puts Jesus on earth and puts the ones who kill him as human authorities (Romans) but not the Pharisees or Sadducees or any Jew. Jesus wasn’t killed for blasphemy or any Jewish crime, but a crime against Rome in the gospel tall tales.

You’re absolutely correct about the archons influencing humans on earth though. In Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and Psalm 82 we see that God has given his sons each a people group to lord over, and all those near eastern peoples believed their king channeled the divine protector deity - or archons as the Greeks called them. Some went so far as to say the king was the incarnate fleshly representative on earth of the deity, and so the king was divine. We were all taught in school that the Egyptians believed the Pharoah to be a god. They forgot to mention that the neighboring people - the Israelites - also believed their king to be divine… they called their king the messiah, or anointed one. David was a messiah, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah… all messiahs.

Do you think it is likely Paul meant the human rulers - the kings of the earth - killed Jesus? Would it be plausible for the Roman emperor with the help of the kings outside of the empire to have crucified Jesus? Paul - the real Paul - wrote that the emperor was put in charge by God. There would have been just one human archon over the empire. Why use Archontones in the plural?

If you would like to learn, have a peak at the gospel of Jesus called the Ascension of Isaiah, an apocryphal gospel found in Egypt. In it, Jesus is explicitly killed in the firmament by the spirit beings - the archons. That, or one very similar, had to have been Paul’s gospel he talks about.

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Next let’s look at (the Jews) “drove us out”. Drove who out of where? Within context Paul is most likely referring to his experience in Theselonica in Acts 17

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Ok. Let’s assume you’re right for a second. Now what would have happened to those Jews in Thessalonika for them to experience the wrath coming upon them to completion? There’s no record of the Jews in Thessalonika receiving wrath to completion during the days of Paul. In acts 17 Paul is actually let go by the authorities, and the brothers (all of Jesus’ literal biological brothers of the virgin Mary :lol:) sent them away. Did you read and comprehend Acts 17? Does your hypothesis still hold water?

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Not necessarily. However this is the most powerful argument for scribal insertion. However if we look at the full corpus of Paul's work, we see several options. Romans 1:18 the "wrath of God is being revealed..." The Greek eis telos does not necessarily mean finally in the context we understand it in English. It can also mean continually, fully, or to the utmost. The ancient Greek and Hebrew words are much more rich with connotation in context.This view can be found in 1 Thess 1:10, Romans 2:5, and Galatians 1:8-9 as well. In addition he could be alluding to the severe famine of the 40's (Gal 2 and Romans 15 which also allow us to conclude he was not talking of the fall of the temple)

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Or, maybe the thing that makes the most sense is the most likely. There’s only one thing that happened between the days of Paul and the third and fourth centuries that our earliest epistle manuscripts copies date to that had 1) Jews being driven out and 2) Jews experienced wrath to completion. That was the temple destruction and subsequent depopulation of Jews and Christians from the Jerusalem. Less likely, though possible, it could be referring to the Bar Kokhba revolt and subsequent banning of Jews and rebuilding and renaming the city Aelia Capitolina and building of the temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount. Either way, the wrath was after Paul would’ve been dead.

That’s my take on it. Could I be wrong about some things? Absolutely. But I believe what I believe because I am convinced by the evidence that it is the most likely thing to have happened.

ETA: that 1 Thess 2:14-16 is a scribal insertion was not my idea. This is the majority view of secular scholars - including the ones I like and the ones I don’t like.

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I wanted to see protesters getting ran over, but this works

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I came for the carnage. I am disappoint.

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Elaborate on scribal insertion.

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Sure. Ok Paul wrote a letter we call the first epistle to the Thessalonians. In chapter 2, it reads…

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14For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

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Read that text, especially what I bolded, and ask yourself if Paul - who considered himself a devout Jew who worshipped the Jewish God, would have written that? Let me explain to you what the hell this scribal insertion is all about.

First of all in 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote the rulers of the age (archons of this aeon) killed Jesus, not by any Jews (who weren’t in power anyway - the Romans were in charge). Paul actually meant cosmic deities (archons, from the same root as archangels, who lived in the sky in Ephesians 6:12), but for this exercise you can pretend the rulers are Romans, not Jews.

Do you think he would contradict himself and tell the Corinthians the archons killed Jesus while at the same time telling the Thessalonians the Jews killed Jesus? It’s not a real contradiction of Paul, but it is a contradiction of the text, because Paul didn’t write that excerpt of 1 Thessalonians.

Next let’s look at (the Jews) “drove us out”. Drove who out of where? There was no record of Christian persecution in any secular records. The government didn’t even know who the Christians were - they were a very obscure cult. And the Jews under the Roman rule didn’t have the authority to drive anyone out of anything.

Did Paul believe the Jews displease God? He himself was a Jew and he viewed the Jews as God’s chosen people.

But wrath has come upon them at last! Alternately But wrath has come upon them to completion! What is going on there. There was no wrath during the days of Paul. There was wrath though by the Romans when the Jewish war began, and the wrath came upon them to completion when the temple was destroyed. To completion. Get it, the Jews caused the Jewish war which caused the Roman legions to come to Jerusalem, smite the shite out of them, destroy the Jewish temple, and depopulate the city… driving the Jews and Christians alike out of Jerusalem.

And because all that happened in AD70, well after Paul would’ve been dead, we know Paul didn’t write it.

Does that make sense?

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It's not illogical. Paul didn't teach what you claim. Hebrews didn't teach what you claim. All you have is the Ascension of Isaiah, which doesn't even teach what you claim Paul taught, since even that writing provides a similar tale of Jesus as a child on earth, being crucified in Jerusalem: "And I indeed saw a woman of the family of David the prophet, named Mary, and Virgin, and she was espoused to a man named Joseph, a carpenter, and he also was of the seed and family of the righteous David of Bethlehem Judah." ... "And when He had grown up he worked great signs and wonders in the land of Israel and of Jerusalem." ... "And after this the adversary envied Him and roused the children of Israel against Him, not knowing who He was, and they delivered Him to the king, and crucified Him, and He descended to the angel (of Sheol)"

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This was the only part of your retard post worth responding to. If you knew what you were talking about, you’d know the part you quoted is the “pocket gospel” (as scholars call it) which was a later Christian addition made in the Ethiopic Ge’ez language and isn’t found in the copies in Aramaic and Greek and Syriac.
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